By Shaenon K. Garrity

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Getting into the final installments of the Astonishing Excursions. At this point, with six months of Narbonic left to go, I’d finally decided where the Victorian serial was going, so these chapters were pretty easy to write. Forward! No regrets!

Yes, Helen is just going to keep walking around in a corset for the rest of this scene. There’s definitely a noticeable Foglio influence on these installments. If only I’d heeded their lessons earlier, I could have had a much more popular strip.

Now that he’s back to being human, Dave immediately lights up. This is one radical departure from the main Narbonic story, in which Dave never smoked.

I was a little unsure about doing the Pim/Mell brain switch, because it might be the kind of thing only I enjoy. I adore all brain-swap stories and it’s strange that I never did a straight-up version of the trope in Narbonic proper. What finally sold me on the idea was Pim!Mell in the black dress with no apron. It’s just such a perfect look. Pim!Mell looks like a stern young governess, like the protagonist of Turn of the Screw if the ghosts and children were afraid of her. Which would be deeply satisfying to read, come to think of it.

Yeah, so not to spoil anything, but this is the next-to-last chapter of the Victorian serial. I’m glad I got a handle on the story in the last two entire chapters. Good work, me!